THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS



Published Date: 14 February 2009
By ALISDAIR HOGG
AT ROYAL DUBLIN SHOWGROUND
Ireland A35
Scotland A10

SCOTLAND'S shadow side were given a reality check by a heavyweight Irish side in foggy Dublin last night. Andy Robinson's men struggled to make any kind of meaningful impact and there was never going to be a reversal of last year's remarkable 67-7 win for the Scots over the same opponents.
Scotland were heavily penalised in the opening quarter of the match by referee James Jones, and as early as 14 minutes captain Ben Cairns was warned due to the volume of offences. Ireland A stand off Jonathon Sexton was on target with three penaltiADVERTISEMENT

es in this opening period, the third of these coming after another yet another Scottish scrumaging offence.

The visiting eight was retreating at a rate of knots, with scrum-half Mark McMillan and No 8 Johnnie Beattie having to work wonders to clear the ball from the base of the set piece. Midway through the half the game loosened up a little, and Scotland broke into the Irish half on a couple of occasions through McMillan and then Sean Lamont. McMillan's break could have led to more but he lost his support as he cut infield and was swallowed up by the defence.

But a try by Scotland A would have been against the run of play and it was the Irish who duly scored the s opener. From a ruck on the half way line Ireland A second rower Bob Casey fed flanker Sean O'Brien, who ran into the sparsely defended blindside. He drew in the cover defence before passing to Sexton and he ran home unchallenged to touch down in the left hand corner. Sexton missed the conversion.

Ruaridh Jackson missed his first attempt at the posts after 33 minutes after Ireland A had crept up offside but he was on target five minutes later from around 30 metres in front of the posts.

The half-time score of 14-3 didn't last long as the massive Irish set piece pressure was directly rewarded with a penalty try and sin-binning of tight-head prop David Young. This resulted in a further try two minutes later when No 8 John Muldoon broke from a scrum to touch down without a hand laid on him. The blindside channel he broke down was where Steve Swindall was withdrawn from to allow prop Bruce McNeil on to the pitch to contest the scrums.

Scrum-half Eoin Reddan added a further try, again in taking full advantage of a forward moving Irish scrum, with Sexton converting. Scotland A managed a consolation try through Lamont in the last minute of the game after some quick stepping from captain Cairns.

Scorers: Ireland:Tries: Sexton, penalty try, Muldoon, Reddan; Pens: Sexton 3; Cons: Sexton 3. Scotland: Try: Lamont; Pens: Jackson; Con Jackson.

Ireland A: G Duffy; A Trimble, D Cave, K Matthews, M McCrea; J Sexton, E Reddan; C Healy, S Cronin, M Ross, B Casey (c), R Caldwell, D Ryan, S O'Brien , J Muldoon. Subs used: Murphy, Humphreys, Fogarty, Andress, Ronan, Boss, O'Donoghue

Scotland A: S Jones; S Lamont, B Cairns (c), R Dewey, J Thompson, R Jackson, M McMillan; S Corsar, F Thomson, D Young, C Hamilton, D Turner, S Newlands, A MacDonald, J Beattie. Subs used: Lawson, Swindall, McNeil, Ross, Macleod, Turnbull, Laidlaw

This article was posted on 14-Feb-2009, 08:36 by Hugh Barrow.